The Power of the 'Book Now' Button

What is the most annoying thing to you as a consumer?

When you’re trying to buy something from a business – what REALLY drives you crazy?

Bad service?

Long wait times?

Non-responsiveness?

Nearly ALL of our frustration as buyers relates to our beliefs about how we should (and shouldn’t be treated) but top among these in this day in age, is our desire NOT TO WAIT.

We never want to wait – for anything. Ever.

As you already know first-hand, in the digital world we live in - we have short attention spans (4-8 seconds in many cases). We crave immediate gratification just about all the time, and we have extremely high (often wildly unrealistic) expectations about speed of communication, service and delivery (thank you uber and amazon).

On top of that, with the increasingly commercialized word we live in, we’re getting more and more cynical and wary of being sold to, so in addition to being obnoxiously impatient, we have thicker and higher walls going up between us and the ‘sales pitch’.

In most cases, we want to shop and decide what we want on our own, and then when we choose to buy it, we want it NOW.

So what does this mean for your pet business?

It means, that LIKE IT OR NOT, if you to compete in this world – you must become easier (and faster) to do business with.

You must ensure that the essential 5 ‘doing business’ milestones are faster, easier and more efficient for both you and your customer:

    1.  Communication
    2. Booking
    3. Payment
    4. Confirmation
    5. Delivery

Just because you’re a small business without easy access to the budget, tech, team and ruthless commitment to efficiency of a global juggernaut like amazon, I’m afraid it doesn’t change the reality of business these days.

While you might not be up at 2am, it doesn’t mean your customer isn’t up trying to tick stuff off their to-do list (which you can bet includes booking Fifi in for a photo shoot or her quarterly pawdicure).

The most simple (and frankly only viable) way to compete (while still maintaining sanity, boundaries, and physical, mental, spiritual and emotional wellbeing), is to automate as much as possible.

If automation is the key to more freedom for petpreneurs, why don’t more of us do it?

We’re scared.

We’re overwhelmed.

We don’t know where to start

We can’t afford to get it wrong

We hate tech

We don’t have time to research and build it

We fear we can’t afford it

 

Bottom line: if you want to compete and succeed and growing your pet business while also growing your work life balance (yes, this is truly possible) you MUST be willing to push through the list of very valid objections and fears above – and get automation working for you in your business, NOW

Here are 10 critical ways to automate (and prep for automation) now

(the last one is the MOST important)

    1. Get your calendar OFF of paper and onto some digital version like google, ical etc.
    2. Start an email list on an email client like mailchimp or my personal favorite, convertkit
    3. Get your invoices /bookkeeping into a platform like xero or quickbooks
    4. Create templates in gmail or your regular inbox to use or copy/paste for the repetitive emails you have to send over and over but tweak slightly for clients or prospective clients
    5. Automate creating and sending a zoom link along with a calendar invite for virtual services
    6. Automated email that sends important pre-appointment info when you receive a booking
    7. Automated email that sends when someone has abandoned their shopping cart or ads that appear when they visited your website
    8. Automated appointment or payment reminder emails at set intervals
    9. Automated email to follow-up on product or service delivery to ask for feedback
    10. A ‘buy now’ or ‘book now’ button that actually allows people to BUY or BOOK IN NOW (not a link to a contact form)

Maybe you have some of these in place – if you have all of them WELL DONE YOU I bet your life and business is SO much easier to manage than it used to be.

Of course there are TONS more ways you can use technology to make the annoying, repeating tasks in your business faster, easier and more efficient – but the MOST important one is no. 10:

Add a ‘buy now’ or ‘book now’ opportunity to your business

If you have this, but it currently links to a contact form – that’s not good enough! That’s deceiving and it’s frustrating and in many cases it will cause people to MOVE ON to go find someone who offers REAL INSTANT BOOKING or BUYING

I know what you’re thinking…

But I want to TALK to my customers before they can book in – I have two options for you:

    1. Fine. Create a book now button that leads to a free consultation that they can book straight into your calendar (see why No.1 above becomes so important)
    2. Get over it. Get paid NOW. Customers probably don’t want to talk to you first (and if they do they’ll email you or call) – so make yourself easier to do business with – make it easier for them to give you money  and allow them to get straight in the door - talk to them when they arrive or when you reach out for your onboarding.

You might be stubborn about ‘vetting’ all your customers before they book in, but I guarantee you a lot of your competitors aren’t – this doesn’t make them bad business owners… it gives them an unfair advantage.

So here is your challenge:

  1. Be willing to Evolve

Consider HOW you can stand firm on your principles and ensuring the wellbeing of all the dogs and people in your business while ALSO making life easier for the impatient, want-everything-now world we live in.

 

  1. Embrace Automation

Consider all the repeating tasks in your business and identify at least 1-2 that you can add / create RIGHT NOW to reduce the amount of time and energy you or your team does doing repetitive stuff.

 

  1. Start with a ‘Book Now’ Button

Transform that book now button from what is essentially a disappointing ‘get in touch’ experience to a REAL and TRUE ‘Book Now’ opportunity for your clients and customers.

This is what Book Your Pet was made for

You can start using it RIGHT NOW for FREE – use the link on your website or if you don’t have a website, direct people straight to your profile on the app. Easy.